Men In Black Party Band Perform At The Royal Wedding!! ...An Awesome Party Band For Hire

Ok, so this is not quite just a normal “day in the life” of Men In Black Party Band. To be honest, as much as I’d love to say we did, we don’t do this sort of gig every day. Generally, we play all over the country (and world) for weddings and corporate functions, big and small, but on 29th April 2011, we performed at Hyde Park for the Royal Wedding celebrations!

We were booked for the gig a month or two beforehand, but naturally with these sort of events, information and details are never quite finalised until the last minute, so we really had no idea what to expect at all! It had become somewhat a habit of mine each day to check the Google listings for “the Royal Wedding celebrations in Hyde Park”, just to see if any more information was up…but there was never much leaked about the whole thing. Anticipation grew as we speculated on what could actually be happening – we just had no idea. Part of me believed there would be hundreds of thousands of people (just like Charles and Diana’s wedding where they had 500,000 turn up to watch in Hyde Park), and the other more cynical part of me thought “no way, it’s probably going to be us on a tiny stage with nobody paying much attention”.

Either way, even not knowing exactly what it was we were booked for, we felt it was such an honour to be part of the big day, we decided to get into the studio and write and record our own original song for the occasion. This is not something we’ve ever done before, but what can I say, we were inspired, which led to the release of our debut original single “On This Day” being released on iTunes just in time for the gig.

We arrived in Hyde Park on the Thursday evening. Obviously London was going to be a nightmare on the Friday so after discussing with the client the logistics of all 10 of us somehow getting into London on the Friday morning early enough to sound check before the crowds arrived, we all decided it would best for us to sound check on the Thursday, and the client agreed to put us up in a Hyde Park hotel which was very nice of them!

We all really had no idea what to expect at all, so most of us left ridiculous amounts of time to get there, and arrived about 3 hours early!! Lol… we do always try to be early, but 3 hours is most definitely our record!

As we were setting up, crowds were building already, the paparazzi were sneaking photographs and a press helicopter circled the park. It was all pretty exciting! As soon as we were there we got a much better idea of what it was we were doing. Huge screens were set up in the park to show the wedding footage, and we had a stage set up just to the side of the screens. It was a bit of a festival vibe, with masses of bars/burger stalls etc all around the outskirts of the area.

I have to say the clients were so lovely. They are one of the biggest event planners in the world, yet probably the most down to earth people we’ve ever worked with. They really put us at ease and explained exactly what we were doing. Basically they’d sent us a list of the “top 5 first dance songs” beforehand, which we’d rehearsed but didn’t really know why! They wanted us to create a medley of the songs, and our first segment would be to play this medley to the crowd, and the crowd would then vote on which song would be the “Hyde Park First Dance”. We’d then have a short break, then start our 35 minutes set with whichever song won, and launch into a set of fun “wedding” style covers. Sounded good to us!

Sound check was fantastic. The crowds were already gathering and people started dancing and singing along. We almost didn’t want to stop! However we did, and headed back to our hotel to go out for a nice meal and try to calm the nerves!

The next morning, us girls were up at 6.00 am for hair and make-up. We had professional stylists who came to our hotel and transformed us into royal beauties! We then headed back to the park for 9.00 am, and could not believe the crowds as we approached the stage. Even at that point in the morning there must have been about 150,000 people there! We bumped into Vanessa Feltz on the way in (who was very friendly actually) and went and hung out in the “MIB cabin”, pretending not to be nervous! (Thank God the toilets were close, that’s all I can say!)

One of the best parts of the whole day for me, aside from the actual playing, was that we were allowed to come out and watch the ceremony on the big screens, but from the VIP area in front of all the barriers. It was just such a special day and we were all really glad that we were able to watch William and Kate getting married (although to be honest it kept making me cry and I had to keep running off to save my make up!)

After the first kiss, it was time for us to take to the stage for our medley of first dances. We were all dressed to the nines, with the boys in suits and the girls in very smart dresses – me in red, Rachael in blue, and Lindsay and Vicky (our female horn section) in white to match the British flag.

We launched into our medley, which featured “Still The One”, “Have I Told You Lately”, “Amazed”, “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing”, and “Everything I Do, I Do It For You”. I must say, I was so proud of the whole band. By the time we went on stage there were 300,000 people there, and the pressure was immense, especially considering this medley hadn’t been properly rehearsed apart from at sound check the day before. However, I have never heard the band sound better or play with such gusto!

The crowd voted for “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing”, and we came off stage to prepare for our next set, to find messages upon messages from friends and family saying we’d been shown on some of the TV coverage! (eek!)

The next set was fantastic. I cannot describe how fantastically it was received, but all I can say is there’s nothing quite like the sound of 300,000 people singing Aerosmith at the top of their voices! Everyone was waving their flags, shouting, singing and dancing, and the whole set went down a storm. We were only supposed to do 35 minutes, but the client asked us to go on longer so we ended up doing a 50 minute set, featuring songs like “Greatest Day” by Take That, “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse, “Give It Up” by KC & The Sunshine Band, and “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green.

As we came off stage, Rachael (the other female singer) and I got absolutely swamped with people wanting autographs and photographs. I think a lot of the foreigners thought we were famous, lol. It was such fun, but in the midst of all that, the client decided they wanted us on for another 25 minutes set. However, Rachael and I could not get away from the crowd to get back on stage – crazy! We ended up being able to escape, and jumped back onstage for another set.

The second set was interesting. With the first set I’d thought about it and planned it out meticulously, whereas this second set was so last minute I just literally had to throw a load of song titles down on paper and shout them at the rest of the band…which you’d think would be stressful, but actually what happened was that we all really relaxed into it, and just had fun. We were running round the stage, playing different percussion instruments and just having fun with it. The crowd loved it and sang along to every word.

It just went so well, and since then we’ve been inundated with fantastic comments about the whole thing. To be honest, all of us in the band have been a bit stunned ever since…I don’t think I could actually even talk to anyone for a whole 24 hours afterwards. Apparently it was the UK’s largest EVER gig, and we were the only band to play it! It really was a hugely emotional experience and something I know we’ll never forget. We are SO proud to have been involved in such a fantastic event, and I think it’s safe to say it’s a day we will never forget!

Debut single “On This Day” by Men In Black is available to buy on iTunes now!